Is there anybody, who ...

[Ingrid Schmitz]

... lives also as a writer in the virtual world (Second Life)?

best wishes
Ingrid

[I. J. Parker]

What?

[J. F. Juzwik]

What does the term 'second life' mean?

[Jon Loomis]

Second Life is an online virtual reality community/role-playing game that's especially big in Europe. People get very deeply involved in it, evidently.

[I. J. Parker]

Jon knows everything. But that makes me think that U.S. interest won't match that in Germany.

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

No second life for me. I'm a World of Warcraft/Eve Online nerd.

[Debbi Mack]

Second life? I can scarcely manage a first one!

[Ingrid Schmitz]

Thank you, for your replies. Yes, Second Life is a virtual world, a 3 D-Chat from LindenLab in San Francisco. The most people, who are there, are from America. ;-) They have 12 Milllion Users, and dayly are 40.000 - 50.000 people worldwide online. It's funny for me as crimewriter, because I can switch with my protagonists from the real world to the second one, and back. I*m the first crime-writer, who has done this in Germany, and therefore, I wanted to know, if an american-writer has had also the idea.

best wishes
Ingrid

@ Ingrid, sorry, but till now, I didn't get your confirmation for beeing friends. Is it my fault?

[I. J. Parker]

I said earlier that I would be glad to be your friend. Doesn't one do the official thing via one's personal page?

And while we're on this subject: while I'm just about everyone's friend here, what is the purpose of all this "friending" business? Does it accomplish anything in the real world? Isn't it worth a lot more for a person to tell another person (a "virtual" stranger) that they feel friendly toward them than to click a button and get added to a list?

[Daniel Hatadi]

The only real reason for friending someone on Ning is to allow them to send you private messages. Otherwise, I wish the function wasn't even there at all. But I don't have any control over that, so them's the breaks.

[Ingrid Schmitz]

I think, the private messages are an important function. Not all I have to tell or to ask, is for the general public and then they are the own way, to ask him or her private.

I appreciate them, but I'll respect it, I.J., if you don't want to accept my friend-request.

best wishes
Ingrid

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

It is my opinion - and this pertains only to Facebook - that the friend function exists so that people you didn't like to begin with can track you down and annoy you.

[Jon Loomis]

Heh. You make a good point, Clay--are we socially obligated to be Facebook friends with all the people we couldn't stand in high school?